“It’s always on the bucket list for every poker player out there. “I’ve been binge-watching the soap operas,” he joked, citing “Yellowstone” and “Bosch” as two of his favorites.īesides Brunson, the return of the Main Event brought two other fixtures: first-time hopefuls and bad beats.ĭan Finnegan of New York was supposed to play the Main Event last year after winning his seat at a charity tournament, but he was forced to wait a year because of the pandemic. But Brunson said he had played poker perhaps six times since the pandemic started. I think it’s going to be a little bit of a wild table now.”įriedman, who was among the chip leaders at the dinner break with 200,500, changed the display on his mask to read “Hello Dolly” to greet Brunson, also known as “Texas Dolly.”īrunson is one of the few people alive who played at the first WSOP in 1970, and he has been a fixture of high-stakes poker ever since. “To have him show up at my table, it’s fun. “It’s a little surprising to see him,” Friedman, who lives in Henderson, said. (The WSOP awards trophy bracelets for tournament victories.) WSOP bracelet winner Perry Friedman joked that people were paying attention to him and his digital mask that had “WSOP 2021” displayed on it - until Brunson sat down at his table. 17.īrunson arrived about an hour and a half into play Thursday.

The champion will eventually be crowned at the final table Nov. A total of 518 players entered Day 1A on Thursday, and 1,514 so far have registered for one of the flights. The Main Event will have five more starting flights every day through Tuesday.

The Main Event is returning to fully in-person play this year after being held in a hybrid online/live format last year because of the coronavirus pandemic.īrunson was still alive with 86,000 chips (from a starting stack of 60,000) at the dinner break Thursday night, with play expected to continue deep into the evening. I’ve been in the house for a year without hardly coming out. “I hadn’t played in a while, and I thought it could be a relief to get out of the house for a while. For Doyle Brunson, it was a chance to get out of the house.īrunson - the “Godfather of Poker,” the 10-time WSOP bracelet winner, two-time Main Event champion and Poker Hall of Fame member - decided to enter the first starting flight of the Main Event, the $10,000 buy-in No-limit Hold’em World Championship, on Thursday at the Rio.īrunson, an 88-year-old Las Vegan, had not played in the Main Event for several years. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal) many poker players, entering the World Series of Poker Main Event is the dream of a lifetime. Jack Effel, Vice President of World Series of Poker, welcomes players to Day 1A of the $10,000 buy-in Main Event at the WSOP from the Rio Convention Center on Thursday, Nov.

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